THE last time we went to Peterborough was this past April to visit my dad in a nursing home in a nearby town and visit my mum as she prepared to leave the house they’d lived in for 25 years and move into a nursing home, too.
Everything was pretty hectic during the few days we stayed at the old house, and it was probably for the best as I didn’t have a chance to get too sentimental and maudlin.
I didn’t even have the opportunity to visit all my old haunts one last time...but I did find time to make one last trip to 229 On Main Cafe.
Once more, I browsed the dusty bookshelves next door to it and retrieved another four cheap books from oblivion for nix ($2 the lot). Here’s what I found.
The Evil Firmby Brian McConnell (Mayflower, 1969)
500
THIS is an extraordinary true crime book, considering it was seemingly written (and probably released) mere weeks after the sensational trial that put London master criminals Reggie and Ronnie Kray behind bars for murder and other gangland-related crimes.
The facts of the crimes and case have been meticulously gathered by journalists from The Daily Mirror, before being knocked together by the author.
McConnell’s writing style is straightforward and brutal. He’s a man who calls a spade a Cockney cunt. Yes, Brian makes it pretty clear from the outset that he hates pretty much anyone who lives in the East End of London. If you replace the word “Cockney” with “Pakistani” and you could have the author up on charges of inciting racism. The disdain he has for these people is palpable.
The crimes committed by the Kray twins during the 1950s and 60s were many and varied, yet deep down they come across as insecure working class yobbos, desperate to better themselves by owning West End nightclubs and hobnobbing with celebrities and the upper class. It’s endearingly pathetic...almost.
Apart from detailing the Krays’ horrific rise to power, McConnell describes the modern history of London’s gangland going back to the 1920s and goes into great detail about not just the Krays’ activities, but also their rival gangs.
To be honest, the twins were by no means the most vicious mob plying their trade back in those days. Brutal beatings and torture – even of their own gang members –was par for the course for these guys. You seemed to be worse off if you WERE a criminal than if you weren’t.
The one thing I found most curious was how McConnell steers clear of mentioning Ronnie Kray’s homosexuality. There’s just one glaring line about Ronnie being arrested by police who found him “sharing his bed with a young boy”. Nothing is said again about it.
The Krays spent pretty much the rest of their lives in prison. Ronnie died in 1995, while Reggie was released a few weeks before his death in 2000.
The book is a fascinating read, despite McConnell’s curious prejudices. I like to think he was an ex-Cockney himself, filled with self-loathing.
NOTE: I was inspired to buy this book after again seeing Monty Python’s classic skit, The Piranha Brothers, which also came out soon after the trial concluded. While spoofing the Kray twins, the long sketch – arguably the finest work the Python boys did in their TV series – is remarkably accurate in describing the sadism, violence and perversion that surrounded the Krays and their rivals.
The Boysby John Burke (Pan Books, 1962)
THIS is an adaptation of a British telemovie that purports to expose the dark underbelly of teen rebellion and the Teddy-boy lifestyle. It’s actually an intriguing courtroom drama with a fun mid-book twist, but suffers a flat ending due to a curious case of middle-class morality.
Four male teens go on a rampage through London one evening, ending with an attempted break-and-enter that goes wrong and leads to the death of a nightwatchman.
Everyone – including the prosecutor (who’s suffering marital issues in an unnecessary sub-plot) – thinks the case is cut and dried, especially as one witness after another is trotted out to relate the boys’ antisocial behaviour that evening.
However, at this point, Burke turns things on its head. The defence attorney Montgomery (played in the movie by Robert Morley) begins to chip away at the testimony of the various witnesses, giving a plausible explanation for every action of the Teds that evening and how much of their behaviour can be explained away by youthful high spirits, misunderstandings and resentment towards people who judge books by their covers. These aren’t violent criminals, says their lawyer, they’re just lads having a night out, but being picked on for their raucous behaviour, long hair and loud clothes.
At this point, I thought The Boys was a bloody good read.
Sadly, there’s one final twist in the tale that undoes everything that’s come beforehand, making Montgomery look like a fool and reaffirming the readers’ prejudice about those “bloody Teds”. Disappointing really.
The Ms. Squad #1: Lucky Pierre by Mercedes Endfield (Bantam Books, 1975)
FEMINISM clearly terrified this author (not actually a woman or his real name, I suspect) when he wrote this sexy-but-misogynistic novel, which appears to have been some inspiration for Charlie’s Angels (which hit TV screens a year later). If it didn’t, then I find the coincidences astounding.
Even the cover blurb states, “These three angels rush in where male fools have tried – and failed!”
Three beautiful women – who consider themselves smarter and more talented than the men who surround, employ and exploit them – meet by chance and realise they have a lot in common. They join forces and decide to recreate famous botched robberies, only this time they’ll succeed, thereby proving women’s superiority over men.
Sounds a lot like Charlie’s Angels to me...except these gals are crims, not cops.
Along the way, they fall foul of a male suave super-spy and some nasty Mafia types before triumphing and setting things up for the next novel. Who knows if that ever came out?
It’s a dumb, trashy read that relies on too much male stupidity and the main characters’ dumb luck to push the story along.
The Invaders: Dam Of Death by Jack Pearl (Whitman, 1967)
COMPANIES like QM put out a ton of these licensed novels for children based on various popular 60s TV series (I have similar hardbacks for Combat and Lassie). I grabbed this one because I’ve never seen The Invaders, but I’ve heard good things about this sci-fi TV series.
David Vincent is fighting a one-man war against alien invaders, but no-one believes him when he says Earth is threatened, so he must fight on alone, unable to trust anyone, against a hidden foe who can assume the shape of any human, including David’s closest friends and family. The series sounds like a mix of The Prisoner, The Fugitive and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
In this book, the invaders take over a small Caribbean island containing a large dam that can create enough hydro-electricity to transport thousands of aliens to Earth. It’s up to David and some new-found allies to stop them. Unfortunately for them, one of his friends is a traitor, and David finds himself a prisoner of the evil aliens.
These books are a breeze to read with obvious plot twists and endings that are never in doubt, but I still kinda enjoyed the paranoid element to Dam Of Death, not to mention the seedy violence, which was probably a big attraction to kids who read it.
- Dann Lennard